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Argosy
The Argosy is a spelljamming ship built and used by gravs. Description The only vessel known to be used by the gravs, the Argosy resembles a small, unworked asteroid. This is intentional misdirection in order to discourage pirates and other potential threats. The ship's stone surface is pitted and scarred with craters, but some of these craters are actually concealed portholes and weapons pits. One portion of the Argosy is flattened, allowing it to land and take on passengers and precious cargo. Most of the interior of the ship is cargo space for mined ore and gems, with the cargo holds serving double duty as the crew and officers' quarters. The armaments of the Argosy are strictly for defensive purposes, and will remain hidden behind secret doors at the bottom of deep craters. The weapons will only be revealed and used if the gravs believe that a ship has detected their presence and is intent on boarding them. Argosies are powered by major helms of the most powerful variety. Crew An Argosy will be crewed by 90-120 worker gravs, led by 3-4 elite gravs, who serve as the ship's officers. One or more of the elite gravs will be a wizard of up to 9th level, and will serve as the ship's helmsman. Since the small gravs use half as much air as a human, the Argosy is quite capable of carrying a much larger crew of gravs. This is uncommon, however, since the elite gravs prefer to be able to voyage greater distances. Ship Uses Mining: Argosies are constantly looking for promising asteroids on which to set up mining operations. When an asteroid is encountered which is believed to have mineral wealth, the gravs will land and investigate. If the gravs determine that the mineral haul is small, but worth exploiting, then the crew of the Argosy will set up a temporary mining camp, and quickly mine the most accessible ore, loading it aboard the Argosy. If the asteroid's mineral wealth is greater, the crew of the Argosy will excavate a more long-term underground mining camp. This camp will be disguised so that it is difficult to discover. Once this underground camp is completed, a portion of the Argosy's crew (typically 30 worker gravs led by a single elite grav) will be left behind to begin mining operations, as the Argosy moves on. As well as searching for new mining sites, the Argosy travels to existing mining camps, bringing supplies and replacement workers to the camps, and hauling away ores and gems. Presumably the supplies and replacements are brought from the grav homeworld, while the ores are brought back to that world, however since the grav homeworld has never been located, this is impossible to verify. Other Configurations No other configurations have been encountered for the Argosy; however, the disguised nature of the craft means that many spacefarers are not even aware of the existence of the ship, let alone of any other configurations. References * Spelljammer reference: MC9 Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix II * TSR reference: TSR 2119 * ISBN: Category:Ships